Tag: Inspired by and living in Wales

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I can hardly wait!

Only six days to go until the launch of Craftucation! My kits are all put together and I’m really proud of them; pure wool yarn from Wales and Yorkshire, bamboo knitting needles, metal stitch markers and tapestry needles, ribbon, cotton project bags and notions pouches and, for the kit with stuffing, either pure wool stuffing or synthetic stuffing made from recycled plastic bottles. Some of them are going to Ewe Felty Thing which is the home of Craftucation and some of them will be listed here on my website (from Monday 15th) if people want to buy them directly from me. These kits contain almost everything you need to complete the course projects (apart from a pen to make notes and something to pin your knitting out onto for course 2). They aren’t an essential purchase if you are taking the course, but they do supply you with quality materials.

KfB1 Kit
KfB2 Kit

I’m going to tell you a little more about my courses and what they contain today. All of the online courses on Craftucation are yours for life once you have purchased them, to work through and return to at your own pace. There will be message boards for fellow students to share their progress and tips and tutors will be able to use these message boards to answer students’ questions.

So if you have ever wanted to learn to knit, but never had the opportunity or someone to teach you, now is your chance!

Knitting for Beginners 1 is a course for complete beginners to knitting, showing you how to cast on, knit, purl, cast off, seam and stuff your knitting to make a gorgeous little knitted creature in a choice of two sizes, along with many tips on solving common problems for new knitters. There are over 100 minutes of detailed videos along with downloadable pdfs that contain the text and many still images from the videos along with the pattern for future use.

Knitting for Beginners 2 builds on Knitting for Beginners 1. You will learn a second cast-on technique (did you know there are well over twenty-five?), how to knit two stitches together, make yarn overs, use stitch markers and use knit and purl stitches to create wonderful varied textures in your fabric. You will also learn how to follow knitting patterns and be introduced to the concept of charts. You will create knitted bunting triangles and two different textured mats. This course contains over two and a half hours of detailed videos and associated pdfs!

From Monday 15th February there will be links to each of these courses on my website that will take you directly to them. If you know anyone who would like to learn to knit – young or old – please point them this way!

I had a really interesting conversation last week with some of the other Craftucation tutors and the range of skills people have to share with you is amazing – I can see there will be some new crafts I will want to learn myself! I’d better get a bit better with the spinning wheel first though – speaking of which, aren’t these colours stunning? This fibre is merino d’Arles and is dyed by Anne Murray.

Merino D’Arles dyed by Anne Murray

Well, it’s starting to snow again, so I’m going to gaze out of the window for a little while. I’m still busy with lots of designing things and I’ve nearly finished the final hat size for the Heart in My Hands collection. And I did make that sourdough starter – it’s two days old and seems happy so far!!

Stay warm and keep safe, K x

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As the green blade rises

As we move into February the evenings have begun to lighten a little. I was really surprised and quite excited the other day to see that the sky was not dark at 5.15 when I looked out of the window. A sign of hope, along with the flowers that are blooming in the garden. Our garden currently has lots of hellebores, snowdrops and cyclamen in flower and it was even warm enough yesterday to get outside and cut away some of the old hellebore leaves and overgrown grasses that were trying to hide the snowdrops. The photo isn’t mine by the way – it’s from The Wildlife Trusts website and was taken by Les Binns.

Other new life is also making its presence felt. I have an urge to make sourdough bread. I know that most people jumped on this particular bandwagon last year, but I was just making standard wholemeal and seeded loaves. Now, though, the idea of sourdough made with my own homemade starter is calling.

If you follow me on social media you will have seen that yesterday Hanna Germander of Germander Cottage Crafts published her Designer of the Month blog feature for February – and it’s yours truly 😊! I did know it was coming out this month, but it’s such a buzz nonetheless. Go and have a look – I’ll wait. And while you’re there have a look at Hanna’s Etsy shop too – it’s super.

You know that I’ve been working on a hat and cowl to go with my Heart in my Hands mitts. The cowl pattern is now live! I wasn’t sure whether to grade it for a range of sizes or just have one size, so I asked for opinions on social media. One or two people said “Just do one, if we want to change anything, we will”, but the majority of folk were in favour of some guidance, even if just to avoid a bit of maths. So, in response to this, the pattern has various options:

  • The Standard Size (24cm x 72cm) with six chart repeats, including meterage used for each colour
  • Information on making the circumference bigger in increments of 12cm, including the meterage for each colour used in that amount.
  • Options to make the cowl taller or shorter by 8.5cm with guidance on how that would change the meterage.

This approach gives *almost* limitless combinations and I think the flexibility is much better than a two or three size pattern.

The hat pattern will be published soon – in three sizes. Very happily you can make the mitts, standard size cowl and large hat all from one skein of each colour of the yarn (Erika Knight Wool Local). You could probably even make the cowl a bit bigger too.

The last crafty thing I want to tell you about today is more of a reminder – Craftucation launches this month!! In less than two weeks, in fact, and I am getting very excited about it. The materials for the optional kits to accompany the courses which will also be available to buy from Ewe Felty Thing are arriving this afternoon (thank you, Yarn O’clock!) and it’s all coming together.

My audiobooks (yes, plural) this week have been from the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom, narrated by Stephen Crossley. At one point the events completely intersected with the book I am also reading, Six Tudor Queens No.5 Katheryn Howard by Alison Weir, which was fascinating and slightly bewildering on occasion. It meant I had to keep reminding myself which bits were murder mystery and which were historical fiction. Both brilliant though.

Have a good week and keep knitting, K x

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Twisting the night away!

When I woke up this morning there were so many things I wanted to tell you about, but now I come to sit and write they have flown out of my head. I’m sure they’ll come back to me. Is that another effect of lockdown, do you think?

One thing I have focused on a lot is my jigsaw habit. The main pic is part of the 700 piece one I finished yesterday. There are two others in the box of a similarly fiendish nature – one of chillis and one of zebras. Which should I do next? I’m leaning towards chillis as a break from the monochrome.

Anyway! I have news. My Beanstalk Throw is now available in its original format with the cable charts shown separately AND also (at NO extra cost) with a full chart (48 rows x 120 stitches) to be worked 3 and 2/3 times AND as a fully written out pattern. That should cater for everyone. I hope. There have been more than a handful of queries over the past four years as to whether the pattern was available in the last two of these formats and, as my most successful pattern in terms of projects, likes and sales, it pleases me that more people will now be able to knit it.

A cabled blanket
Beanstalk Throw – a cabled blanket

Cables are so fantastic. The fact that you can take a few knitted stitches and swap their position with a few stitches next to them, getting these incredibly varied ropes, braids and twines never ceases to amaze me. In fact, considering how much I love them, it’s just shocked me that I only have three published patterns (out of 40) that use cables! Three! I know I have designed more, so I must do something about getting them out into the world.

Speaking of getting things out into the world, my Heart in my Hands Cowl will be published later this week (and possibly the hat too). No cables in these as they are stranded knitting (often known as Fair Isle). I adore how the large size of the hat has turned out and I’ve charted up the small and medium sizes too. I think I will need to knit up a medium as well as I’ve had to change the pattern repetition to get the right size.

Woman with blue hair and coat standing in front of snowy holly bush wearing knitted Fair Isle hat
Me wearing Heart in my Hands Hat
Woman standing in front of a snowy holly bush facing away from the camera so the crown of her hat can be seen
The crown of Heart in my Hands Hat

The challenge now is to get photos of the cowl and the whole set that I am happy with as these are an important part of the pattern publishing stage.

The snow was quite impressive, wasn’t it? It’s still here, though melting more rapidly today as it has begun to rain a little. The pavements in the residential parts of our town are covered with compacted ice about an inch thick, so most people are walking in the roads.

The Llanberis MKAL is now complete and people are starting to show their completed hats on social media. I love all the different combinations of colours that were chosen. Anne at Yarn O’clock selected nine colours of Rowan Moordale for the kits and gave people a free choice about which three they used, which has resulted in great variety. Here are some of mine: The first is in Rowan Moordale and the second is in Shilasdair Yarn’s Luxury DK.

A woman standing in the snow, bending sideways to show the crown of her blue, silver and grey knitted hat (Llanberis Hat)
Llanberis MKAL
A woman standing in the snow, looking away from the camera wearing an orange, blue and green hat (Llanberis Hat).
Llanberis MKAL

So, lots happening and lots to do. Even before the hat and cowl for Little Orme that is also coming – the yarn arrived yesterday, so I’ll be able to get on to that later. All of which does help a bit to take my mind off waiting for a response from my last submission, although I must admit the waiting does make me a bit like a cat on hot coals!

Stay warm, dry and safe as best you can and if anyone has any top tips for keeping the neighbourhood cats off our veg patch and lawns it would be much appreciated.

Keep Knitting, K x

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Rainy Days and Mondays

Yesterday was apparently Blue Monday. It’s not something I subscribe to, although two people I spoke to said they’d felt a bit more down than usual. I’m not sure that simply being the third Monday of the year is enough to qualify in this particular decade – there are plenty of other things going on.

It’s raining here in North Wales today. No surprise there, but it’s due to keep on raining for the next couple of days, after which we get a couple of days of sleet! Thank you, Storm Christopher. I am so glad we live up a very big hill – I would rather get snowed in than flooded any day. Despite the rain, or maybe even because of it, it is the perfect time to be knitting hats and cowls.

About a year ago, when I was doing stalls at the local pop-up shop, one of the people browsing said that I should do hats and cowls to match my stranded mitt designs and that is what I am currently working on. It was so lovely to return to charts I knew and ‘play’ with them, trying out different variations and seeing what I liked most. It’s ‘only’ taken me a year to respond to that feedback, but I get there in the end.

The cowl to go with Heart in my Hands Mitts is done. I just need to make sure I’m 100% happy with a couple of design decisions and then it will be published. The hat is not far behind. The cowl will be in one size (or maybe two), the hat in three, and there will be more maths involved in getting the sizing just right for the hat, hence why I did the cowl first! What do you think?

Heart in my Hands Mitts and Cowl

If you have subscribed to my newsletter via the sign-up on the website, you will know that there is a special 15% subscriber-only discount running until the end of January on ALL my products in the payhip shop (everything on the website links to this). This covers not only digital downloads of patterns, but also all the wooden treats and knitting kits too! What a bargain! I know I mentioned last week there would be a discount code in the newsletter, but if you sign up before the end of the month, that discount could be yours as well.

Llanberis Mystery Knit-along is going well. It feels weird that it will be over so soon though – the third and final part is being released on Friday. People are posting their progress on Facebook and Instagram, and saying that they are enjoying the pattern. That’s one of the things I like best about social media – you can see what people make with your designs and get instant feedback.

Even a bit of negative feedback can be useful – certainly more so than radio silence. I had an email a couple of weeks ago from someone who didn’t like the layout of one of my patterns. Initially, I was offended and a bit hurt, but after I’d got over myself (and had a sleep) I looked at it again and thought about what I could do to improve things. This is the Beanstalk Throw I wrote about last week and shows how even negative feedback can help you develop – as long as there isn’t too much of it!

I made the marmalade last Wednesday. It’s gorgeous, though it did take six hours – partly because I had forgotten that though my mum’s fast hob ring is front left, mine is back right, so if I want a fast boil I need to remember whose kitchen I am in! Fortunately I managed to move the preserving pan without burning myself. It’s a therapeutic process in some ways, whilst leaving you totally wiped out in others, albeit with the added bonus of about a year’s worth of marmalade.

13 lbs of Marmalade cooling in their jars

Yesterday I had some fun with my spinning wheel. I haven’t done any of the exercises in Katie Weston’s Spinning with a Purpose course for a while, so I had a go at making slubs and also some consistently thicker yarn than my ‘standard’ instinctive spinning tends to produce. I don’t know whether it’s a tension thing or if I just want to scrape every last bit of value out of the fibre I have, but I have tended towards the finer fingering-weight and lace-weight end of things. This was a challenge. I loved it. I’m also ridiculously pleased with the slubby yarn I made, despite the fact there’s only about two metres of it and I’m unlikely to ever be able to knit with it. I just want to admire it and pet it! WPI stands for ‘wraps per inch’, as in how many times yarn of that thickness can be wrapped around a piece of card or wood an inch wide. The gap at the top of the WPI tool in the photos is an inch wide (and the massive slub almost fills it!). The numbers under the horizontal lines show how wide a strand of yarn would be if it were 4/6/8 etc wraps per inch.

Slubby Yarn hung round spinning wheel
Massive slub on WPI tool
Skein of Bulky yarn on WPI tool
Single strand of Bulky yarn on WPI tool
Skein of DK/Worsted weight yarn on WPI tool
Two strands of DK/Worsted weight yarn on WPI tool

Speaking of challenges and learning new stuff – Craftucation will be going live in less than four weeks!!!! (Yes, I know four exclamation marks are a lot, but I think this warrants it). I will be jumping around and shouting about this more and more as February 15th comes around. If there is a new craft you are interested in learning, that will be the place to go. Not all the course will be up at the very start, but it will grow and there will be some wonderful opportunities to learn new skills.

Keep going – you can do it. And keep knitting. And stay warm. K x

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Oranges and Lemons…

For the very first time I bought my own marmalade oranges this morning. I have been making marmalade for about three or four years, but in previous years the oranges had always been bought by my mum and I would make the marmalade at her house, after which we would share out the jars. Last year was the first time I did it without direct supervision. Trusted at last? Yes, but also she could no longer stand in the kitchen for long enough and instead checked on progress from her reclining chair. It is sad that this year will be the first time in 25 years that her house will not be filled with the wonderful smell of marmalade making and that I cannot travel to see her. Another little cruelty of Covid. So, tomorrow I shall make the marmalade and put some jars aside for the time when I am again allowed to visit my mum.

Over the past few days I have been doing lots of other making:

I have knitted my Part One of the Llanberis MKAL and enjoyed seeing others begin to post pictures of their progress.

I am now on the final part of my Avix cardigan by Jennifer Dessau and can hardly wait to finish the neck / front bands later today. This will be the second time I have made this pattern – something I hardly ever do unless it’s my own design. It’s a great cardigan and I want to wear it as soon as possible!

Yesterday I spun the second half of a mohair and wool mix that I carded into rolags last week – it left a really strange residue on my hands, a little like the oily wax from the skin of citrus fruit. It will be interesting to see how it behaves once plied and washed.

Mohair and Wool Rolags

I have been busy creating charts for FOUR new patterns – Stitchmastery is such a great programme. I’ve also been looking at my pattern for the Beanstalk Throw as I regularly get queries about whether there is a written version of the pattern or a single full chart and I will soon be able to supply knitters with those which I’m really pleased about and will open up the pattern to those who don’t use charts.

And! I have drafted my first newsletter!! It will be going out on Thursday to my subscribers with a special subscriber discount code that can be used on ANYTHING on my website until the end of the month. So, if you fancy a great deal – why not sign up to my email list?

I think all this ‘busyness’ has been partly a way of stopping myself from doing an impression of Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream, over everything that’s going on in the world right now. Serious distraction and re-direction of attention along with doing things that keep my hands occupied so I can’t doom-scroll through the news.

Stay safe folks and, when you can, keep knitting and making stuff. It’s good for the soul. Kx

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She’s a Rainbow

My newest and most exciting news is that our new MKAL (mystery knit-along) launches next month – on January 8th! Llanberis is a small colourwork item in three shades and kits are available for £20 from Yarn O’clock. Alternatively you can buy the pattern on its own for £4 directly from me and it will be available to purchase in advance, although you won’t receive it until the launch date.

The pattern is being released in three parts on January 8th, 15th and 22nd. All you need is 3 x 25g of DK yarn in different colours, 8 stitch markers, 3.25mm 40cm circular needles or dpns and 3.75mm 40cm circular needles and/or dpns. It’s so good to have something to look forward to in the New Year – why not join us?

The picture above is the a little part of the quarry at Llanberis. We miss going there as we’ve not ventured far at all since March.

It’s also been a fairly intense week on the computer – but I now have all my recordings and notes done and uploaded for my second course on Craftucation. I’ve even put on lipstick for the first time in well over two years for the sections where the camera was on me.

Me with lippy!

Changing the frames per second rate to 60 from 30 made a massive difference to the image quality of hand close-ups, but it doesn’t half eat up the storage space on your computer! Before I had finished my 1TB storage was full and I had to go through my hard drive to delete the old and unnecessary. It’s amazing how much junk you transfer from an old computer to a new one without realising.

All that’s left now is for me to take stills from the videos to add to my notes and “Knitting for Beginners 2” will be submitted for listing on Craftucation. The website launches in just over a month – January 18th 2021.

My plan for my next course to go on there is “An Introduction to Lace Knitting”. If you have any requests for knitting courses do let me know and I’ll see what I can do!

I have been delighted with how my yarnie advent calendars have been developing. The flower wreath from Yarn O’clock is stunning and I keep thinking of new possibilities for the mini skeins from Bear in Sheep’s Clothing.

Yarn O’clock Advent Calendar Wreath
Days 1-5 Mini Skeins
Days 6-10 Mini Skeins
Days 11-15 Mini Skeins

So, it’s dark and chilly, but we have yarn and colour. I’ve also noticed that lots more people locally have put up Christmas lights this year, which is really cheering.

If you want to add any more colour into your life with a knitting kit then you have until the end of this week to order. After that I won’t be posting anything out until the New Year. Digital downloads of patterns are, of course, available twenty-four hours a day. ☺️

Keep knitting and remember to stretch. K x

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OK Computer

The past two days have seen me pretty much glued to my computer adding still pictures to the notes for my first online course. I had previously selected all the images I wanted to use as stills from the videos, cropped them down and saved them in the relevant folders ready to upload, but then I discovered that they were too small pixel-wise, so it was back to the drawing board (or rather, iMovie) for me!

I am therefore very pleased to report that apart from uploading two small Word docs that are downloads, this course is done! It does, of course, need to be moderated and approved, but fingers crossed I’ll be able to move onto the next one. There’s loads of detail for complete and utter beginners to knitting, right down to how to make a slip knot – if you’ve ever fancied learning to knit, keep your eyes peeled for the launch of Craftucation in January.

Last week I mentioned ideas for the next MKAL with Yarn O’clock. Well, I had lots of fun with my coloured pencils in my bullet journal and have been swatching and the new pattern is born. This is a different approach for me as I usually play around with charts on my computer using Stitchmastery, but it allowed me to explore ideas whilst on the phone (don’t tell my mum!) and watching TV. I just need to knit it now and then do a bit of grading. I love using my bullet journal as you can probably tell from all the stickers and tape poking out of it and I’m eternally grateful to Felicity Ford’s (Knitsonik’s) bullet journalling course which encouraged it as a working space, not a thing of ‘perfect’ pages.

Have you ever upgraded your computer’s OS and then wished that perhaps you hadn’t? I installed Mac OS Big Sur at the weekend, only to find that it doesn’t play nicely with Stitchmastery yet. Grr. (I had already done my charting on paper – that wasn’t the reason I changed my usual routine). Of course, I did a full back up before the upgrade, but I’ve done quite a bit of stuff since then and am in two minds about whether to go back. If the fact that all my docs are stored in the cloud means they won’t get deleted if I revert then that might be tomorrow morning’s fun and games…

Wish me luck and keep knitting, K x

P.S. I’ve spun one bobbin of laceweight yarn (50g) and the second one will be started tomorrow. Can’t wait!